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I have had the most insane week. I feel like I’ve barely had time to breath, and I’ve had a billion things running through my head to write about, but I haven’t had two minutes to sit still, let alone write. The craziness isn’t over yet either, I’m on my way out of town for the coming weekend, then I’ll be home for two days before leaving again for thanksgiving. So while I have 5 minutes, I wanted to update you guys on the whole ‘not negative’ thing. All of you have been so wonderfully supportive, I don’t want to leave you hanging for another week. I’d worry if one of you guys announced you were pregnant then disappeared!

So here’s how my week has gone so far:

Monday: Spent most of the day at the vet with one of my kitties. She’s had a series of issues that we just couldn’t quite pin down a cause for, so she needed an xray. After a whole day and an enema later (poor baby :(), the only thing they could find wrong with her was constipation.

Tuesday: First beta: 60. So far so good!

Tuesday night: Barely slept the entire night. No good reason for it, I was exhausted, I just couldn’t fall asleep for the life of me. I woke up pretty miserable on Wednesday and zombied my way through the day.

Wednesday: We went to yoga in the evening and I was feeling nice and relaxed. Until we got home. Guys, I am apparently a giant hormonal mess. I bent over to put a cat food bowl on the floor and banged my head coming back up. Somehow, this led to me sobbing like a giant snotty 3 year old. Not because it hurt, but just…..because? Then I proceeded to yell at G for the next 20 minutes because….I have no idea. I just did. He was looking at me like I was some sort of alien creature. In 6 pregnancies I’ve never been emotional like this.

Wednesday night: Barely slept again! This time it was because I woke up in the middle of the night positive that I was having cramps and that I was going to be bleeding like crazy when I got up in the morning. I don’t know if it was just part of a bad dream, or if I really did have cramps, but I was completely convinced it was all over.

Thursday: After two nights of not sleeping and a night of crying, I had bags the size of Texas under my eyes. Stumbled my way through getting ready and went in for beta number two. The result: 215. That’s a doubling time of 28 hours. Crazy fast. Here’s the thing, in the past I’ve always had insanely high betas. I don’t remember numbers, but they always end up being off the charts high. It’s never been an issue of multiples, and besides that I can’t find any good reason why levels would be so high. Everyone always talks about how great it is to have high numbers, and what a good sign it is, but that’s never been the case for me. So, I was kind of hoping for more ‘average’ numbers this time, just as a sign that something was different. Honestly I have no idea if my hcg levels have anything whatsoever to do with my miscarriages, so there’s no reason to worry about this, but you know how that goes.

Thursday evening: On my way home on the train tonight I was thoroughly enjoying catching up on some of your blog posts when someone snatched my phone from out of my hands. I knew what was happening, and I had a good grip on the phone, so I held on, saying ‘NO NO NO’, trying to fight him for it. I managed to hold on for maybe 5 seconds, but eventually he was just too strong and he got it. He jumped out of the train door just as it was closing, leaving me shocked, pissed, and phone-less. The thing is, if I’d been thinking more clearly I would have screamed for help, or kicked him, or something, and I might just have been able to get him to lose his grip. There were tons of others on the train with me, but because I didn’t scream out, they didn’t know what was happening until it was too late. I made a police report, but there’s about zero chance I’ll be getting my phone back.

During all of it I was pretty darn calm, but the moment I got home I turned into the hormonal ball of tears again, alternately crying and yelling at G for various unknown crimes. To top it all off, I had promised to make a birthday cake for G’s nephew, and tonight was my only time to make it. I was already 45 minutes late starting the process from making the police report, and completely exhausted. At first cake making was going smoothly, and just as I was congratulating myself on keeping it together enough to make a cake after everything else I’ve been through this week, I make a huge mistake. Now the cake is half the size it should be (the top layer had to be tossed), my kitchen is COVERED in cake guts, and I simply do not have the energy to clean it up. The miniature cake is frosted and in the fridge though, and in a few minutes I get to get into to my gloriously comfortable bed. I sure as hell better be able to sleep tonight.

Tomorrow we drive a couple hours to meet SIL and family at an indoor waterpark for nephew’s birthday. Nephew is 3 now, and I call him my little reminder, because he was born right when we first started trying. So yeah. Happy 3 years! I have no intention of telling them about my ‘not negative’ yet, but G kindly informed me that no one will notice that I’m not drinking/watersliding/hot-tubbing because they have kids to pay attention to. Read: you are essentially invisible when the all-important children are around. At least how it sounded to my hormonally-hyped up self. Hence fight number one.

Seriously though, I’m holding myself together by just a few threads at this point. I go back and forth between completely freaked out that five minutes from now the pregnancy will be over, and slightly optimistic that it will work out. Now that steps 1 and 2 are passed (betas), the next step is to make it to my first scheduled ultrasound without bleeding. This will probably be in two to three weeks, and I’ve never made it that far in without bleeding before. I always start bleeding around 5 weeks, and no matter what the ultrasound eventually says, the bleeding is the beginning of the end. I have trouble visualizing making it to the next stage, but I know that that’s at least in part because I’m habituated for bad news. I’m trying to keep myself cautiously optimistic and avoid the highs and lows. It’s really not working very well yet, but hopefully a good night’s sleep will help.

I tested today. 10 dpo. And it wasn’t negative. I’m having a lot of trouble getting from it’s ‘not negative’ to it’s ‘positive’. It just feels like it could blow away in a strong wind.

Last night G and I stopped on our way home from dinner to pick up a pack of FRERs, because this month I just didn’t have it in me to wait for 12dpo to use my cheapos. Usually G is all about waiting because he hates how upset I get, so he’d rather put it off. This time felt different though, he was expecting his birthday present, and he hates waiting for presents. This morning, I stalled getting out of bed, knowing that I would have a terrible day when I saw the negative. Even as I watched the test develop, I just knew it would be bleach white. I waited for a minute or two, didn’t see anything, and got up to brush my teeth. A minute later, I peeked back over to the test.

The line wasn’t dark, but it wasn’t the lightest line I’ve ever had either. There wasn’t any squinting, it was clearly visible. I called to G, ‘Honey, come here. It’s not negative’. The second thing I said was, ‘I didn’t f*ck it up this time’ (at least so far). My overwhelming feeling was just relief. Relief that I am still able to get pregnant, and relief that this month won’t be another month of the same.

After the last two chemical pregnancies, I’m hyper aware that this might be over any minute. I’m only thinking a few days and a few steps at a time. Step 1, re-test in a day or two to make sure the line is still there and not lighter. Step 2, call for a beta, probably Tuesday. This is as far ahead as I can think right now.

I’m 7 dpo, and the antsiness is setting in hardcore. I keep opening up my ovu-tracker app or looking at the kitchen calendar wondering if by some miracle another few days have passed while I wasn’t looking. I was doing so well being patient during the tww the past few months, and all that appears to be out the window this month.

The problem is I’ve put a lot of pressure on this month. The longest it’s taken me to get pregnant in the past is 5 months, and this is our 5th month of trying this go-around. I remember very clearly that by the 5th month last time, I was going totally crazy, positive that my reproductive organs had crapped-out completely. So, the only way I’ve been maintaining some form of sanity (a meager one) this time is by reminding myself it’s taken this long before and still happened. If it doesn’t happen this time though, we’ve moved into entirely new territory. The territory of ‘oh shit, there’s something else wrong here’.

5 months has become an important landmark to me because of this, but when I started doing some reading it turns out its not completely arbitrary. From everything I’ve read, if you’re putting all the things in the right places at the right times so to speak, it should happen within 4-6 months. I’ve done everything I could possibly do this month, bbt and CM charting, minimal caffeine, extra folic acid (on top of a normal prenatal), acupuncture, full-fat dairy, I even started eating fish once a week or so for the omega-3s, despite being vegetarian for 15 years (yup, apparently I’m even willing to bend my principles a little if it will get me a baby). The stars aligned and we tried 3 whole times during my fertile period, and my CM did its grossly fertile thing. If it doesn’t work with all of that, things are just not looking good.

Rather than being totally depressed or anxious about what it will mean if this month fails, I’ve actually been pretty darn optimistic for most of the month. I even went so far as to promise G I’d be pregnant by his birthday (in December). I know, what was I thinking putting that kind of pressure on myself? It happened when we were laying in bed after our last ‘attempt’, knowing we’d done all we could. The topic turned to his birthday, and what he might want as a gift, and I, apparently in a post-sex high said “I know, I’ll get you a baby for your birthday!”. Dumbass. Well, at the time we both thought it was funny, but he’s brought it up a few times since, as if he believes it’ll happen. I had to put a stop to it eventually, explaining that it just feels like a lot of pressure for something I can’t control at all.

In the middle of all this, a friend from a local support group sent me a link to an article about a way to investigate miscarriages. I’d never heard of it, and immediately gears started turning in my head. Basically, what they do is after you’ve had a missed miscarriage (I suppose you’re sort of out of luck if it happens suddenly), they go in with a camera and actually cut through the sac and look at the embryo itself. I’m sure there’s a lot of factors that go in to whether you can do this or not, and whether or not it will work, but this article made it sound like a very simple procedure that theoretically any doc could do.

And what they see is whether the embryo looks essentially normal or not. If it looks normal, you’d assume that the problem was something external, like an implantation problem, or an immune issue of some sort. If the embryo has clear malformations, then you’d assume that the problem is probably genetic or developmental. Now, I’m not sure you’d know exactly what to do with this information, because it doesn’t really tell you much about how to treat it, but I would DEFINITELY want to know at least this much information if I could. It would make an enormous difference in my mind to have some clue about even what type of problem we have. For example, it would suddenly open the possibility of donor embryos or surrogacy. Not that I’m saying I would necessarily jump to doing either of those, but they’ve always been off the table in my mind because we have no idea if my problem is me or the embryos, so how do you know which one to even consider?? This would open doors to start considering if they should even be on the table at all.

Another reason to do this type of procedure is that you can be sure to get cells from the actual embryo for karyotyping, without having to worry about maternal contamination (ie, when you accidentally get the mother’s cells instead and the test comes back normal female, but it isn’t representative of the embryo). In my case, both of my embryos that have been tested came back normal male, so whatever our problems were, they weren’t chromosomal. What they found in this article though is that only something like 40% of the time when they observed a malformation in the embryo that was likely caused by a genetic problem it was picked up by karyotyping! This shouldn’t be shocking because there are just so many things that could go wrong genetically, and aneuploidy (the wrong number of chromosomes) is just one. What was shocking to me is that no one ever talks about this! When my embryo’s karyotypes came back normal, my doctor was surprised, but then basically wrote off the possibility that we have a genetic problem. I’ve even asked before, couldn’t it be something genetic besides a chromosomal problem? His answer is always, well yes, that’s possible, but basically shrugging it off as unlikely. Well, if this data is correct, karyotyping only ever had a 40% chance of finding a genetic problem if there was one!

This has all been swirling around in my mind the past few days, and honestly there’s not much I can do with the information yet. I’ll either be pregnant this month or not. I’ll either have another miscarriage or I won’t. So, what we’ve decided is that if I am pregnant this month, then awesome, we’ll take that for what it is and try to be optimistic about it. We will hope that either the things that have changed since my last miscarriage (less stress, acupuncture, thyroid medication, higher dose of progesterone) will make a difference, or that for some unknown reason that has nothing to do with those things, it will go differently this time. If not, and I have another miscarriage, we will start to ask questions (and possibly be really pushy) about considering this procedure. If it gives us any sort of half answer that will be amazing.

And, if I’m not pregnant, we’ll call the doctor and see about figuring out why. I’m not sure if they will take me seriously since the standard is 6 months (or maybe I’ll just bend the truth and say it’s been 6 months), and I’ve been pregnant naturally so many times already, but I simply do not have the patience for another month of the same. Either way, things will be moving forward in one direction or another next month. So yeah, now I just have to manage to make it through the next few days….

***Update: In case anyone would like to read the article about embryoscopy, here it is. Also, there are other articles out there I’ve found today searching for ’embryoscopy’ and ‘miscarriage’ on google scholar ***

I had my very first acupuncture appointment ever today. I never thought I would do acupuncture, I’ve always thought of it on the same sort of level as numerology or something. I’m a skeptic, and I’ve just always believed in what could be demonstrated by evidence and data. This is what infertility can do though. I’ve lost all sense of control over my body and how it functions, so I’m grasping at whatever I can to feel like I have some sort of power over the future.

So here’s how it went down, just in case you’re one of the few infertiles left who haven’t tried acupuncture (I mean, seriously, it seems like was the last hold out). I filled out a somewhat detailed medical history, and then proceeded to wait 30 minutes before a room was available for my session. Once it was finally available, we walked in to a very comfortable room with a padded bed and an ikea rocking chair. The acupuncturist, let’s call her Beth, is a former member of our infertility support group, and has done acupuncture for just about all the members of the group. They all had wonderful things to say about her, including that she’s your number one cheerleader throughout the process of getting/staying pregnant, so it feels like you really have someone on your side. She was certainly very nice, and seemed genuinely interested in helping.

We talked for about half an hour, and it was nice to be able to talk through some of the medical details of my history with someone again. It’s been a year since I saw Dr. O, and he was never really interested in hearing my ‘theories’ of what my problem is, simply because there’s absolutely nothing he can contribute. That is, if I ask, what do you think it means that I have so much bleeding when I’m pregnant, is that a symptom of the problem, or is it the problem itself? Or if I’d say, well, the fact that X has happened every single time probably means Y, right? All I’d ever get out of him was, there’s just no way to know for sure. Of course he’s right, there isn’t any real way to know what any of it means for sure. But I can’t help but think maybe there are clues there, and if only he’d play along maybe we could find some sort of pattern hiding in the mess. I just want someone to be as anal about the details as I am, even if it is just conjecture. Anyways, I’ve gone off on a tangent here.

So, she listened thoroughly, and offered some feedback about several things I’ve been wondering about lately, including taking extra folic acid and baby asprin. I’ve already been doing the former (because it can’t possibly hurt), and I’ve been considering the latter. She didn’t really try to give me medical advice, but agreed that they aren’t dangerous and that it’s reasonable for me to consider.

She then spent a little time explaining, in a very general way, how acupuncture supposedly works. I say supposedly, because at this point I started to hear the voice of charlie brown’s teacher (wah wah, wah wah wah…). I shook my head like I was paying attention, but I didn’t even bother listening. The thing is, if I beleive acupuncture has an effect on fertility, or pain, or whatever else, it will be because it has some inadvertent medical effect. I simply don’t beleive that there are humors or whatever they are (see, I really didn’t pay attention), that control our bodily functions. What I do beleive is that perceptive people might notice that taking some sort of action, or treatment, has an effect on health, and then, in the absence of modern medicine, build up an explanation around it. In other words, it might work even if they don’t really know why it works.

After talking for a while, I got up on the table and she felt my ‘pulses’, and looked at my tongue. Now, I can beleive that there are signs about health in these. I also think they are probably rather subjective, so you might be able to feel/see a difference if you are looking for it. She gave me a short explanation of what she felt and what it meant, then started inserting needles. As much as I’ve always hated needles, I wasn’t that nervous about these needles until she started talking about them. I’d been so nervous about the fact that I was going to an acupuncturist at all, that I hadn’t had a chance to worry about the needles themselves until they were right in front of me. A number of people had told me that it wasn’t painful, and they were mostly right. I didn’t feel the needles in my head or arms, and only felt small pricks of pain in my feet. After a few seconds they started to itch a little, and by the time a minute or two had passed I couldn’t feel anything anymore.

Then came the hardest part. Laying still for 40 minutes. According to everything I’d heard/read, this is supposed to be the best part. There’s relaxing music and you can just take a nice nap if you want. Well, I am not physiologically capable of napping (unless I’m pregnant, and then I could nap all day…), and I don’t find laying still fun. I immediately felt antsy, like I needed to move just because I wasn’t supposed to. I thought, how the hell am I going to lay here for 40 minutes?? Plus, due to some mild degenerative disk disease, I get a lot of back pain when I lay flat. I try not to ever lay flat in bed, and the last time I had to lay still on my back for that long was to get an MRI. By the end of the MRI I was in excruciating pain. I started to get really nervous, so when Beth came back to check on me a few minutes later I asked for a extra pillow for under my knees.

Back pain problem solved, I proceeded to lay still and try to relax for the remaining 30 minutes. I did eventually relax, although my mind was still spinning and I kept hoping it would be time to get up soon. Beth returned to remove my needles, I got dressed, and that was it. She warned me that I might feel sleepy for the rest of the day, and I suppose I’m a little sleepy, but overall I feel pretty normal.

I made another appointment for next week, and I’m definitely keeping an open mind about the whole thing. I don’t think it can possibly hurt to give it a shot, and I do beleive that it’s possible it might help, even if it’s just a placebo effect of some sort. I’m feeling more optimistic about my chances of a BFP this month than I have in a while, so any tiny thing that can nudge me in the direction of finally getting pregnant is great. Then, I’ll worry about the staying pregnant part when I get there.

Today A Calm Persistence wrote a post where she talks about self-doubt, wondering if she is going to be a good mom, and if this might be why she doesn’t have a baby yet. This thought is something that’s been hiding out in the back of my mind for a long time. It’s not the kind of worry that pushes to the front and forces you to think about it often, but instead hides out where you don’t notice it, waiting to pop out at you when you’re not expecting it. It usually pops out at me when I’m already feeling insecure to begin with.

Really, there are so many things I’m unprepared for. What if I somehow manage to make it through infertility, just to find out that I’m a terrible mother? I feel like I can handle the baby years. Having a newborn sounds like a ton of work and unbelievably exhausting, but predictable. I know I’ll feel overwhelmed, and only get a few hours of sleep a night, and I’ll be excessively worried about whether I’m doing it all right. But these are all predicable struggles. It’ll be tough but do-able. What terrifies me is what comes after. Raising a child.

What if I can’t manage to discipline my kids and they run wild? What if I yell too much, or say no too much, or pass on my most terrible qualities? What if I’m too terrified of something bad happening to them that I can’t let them out of my sight? What if I’m too self-centered and can’t put my own needs behind theirs? What if there are social situations that trigger my anxiety and I fail them instead of fighting the anxiety and handling things head-on?

Some days I’m so worried about these things, and so sure that I’m not capable of it all, that I can convince myself that I’m not supposed to be a mom. That infertility is the universe’s way of saying that it isn’t meant to be. Some things just tend to work out for the best, and maybe it is actually for the best that I can’t have a baby, even though I can’t see right now. Isn’t my desire to have a child just a selfish instinct in the end? Maybe I should be thinking more of the best interests of my potential child rather than my selfish need to have a baby.

The rational part of me knows that this can’t all be true; so many people have kids and have no clue what they’re doing. They parent entirely by instinct (which may or may not be good instinct), with no intentionality or thought-process. I may have no experience yet, but I’ve spent so much time thinking about how I would parent. I’ve thought about what I would do in different types of situations, or how I would handle circumstances that come up. I’ve thought about how I would discipline them, how we would spend time together, even what foods they’d be allowed to eat or not eat. I’ve had 3 years to think about this since we started trying, but really, I’ve been thinking about these kinds of things ever since I started babysitting in middle school. I may end up being wrong about all of it, but just having put that much thought into parenting must give me some sort of head-start, right?

I know that these types of fears are normal for first time parents (or wanna-be parents in my case). But, infertility adds a particular kind of edge to the worries. We’ve spent massive amounts of time, money, and effort to end up with a child. If we finally get there and then fail, it seems like an extra special kind of failure. Not only did we fail our child, we also spent tons of time, money, and effort to have the opportunity to fail. Pretty pathetic. Plus, we have all this time to worry about the choices we’re going to make. When you decide to have a baby and get pregnant quickly, you only have so much time to freak out before it’s too late. We get endless amounts of time to worry about our potential abilities as parents before it ever becomes an issue.

At the moment, there isn’t much I can do about any of this; I’m not giving into the worries and giving up, but the thoughts will still be there hiding out and waiting for my low moments to pop back out.

Things have been pretty quiet around here lately, which makes this a perfect time to write about sunshine awards! I feel incredibly touched to have been nominated by two fellow bloggers, Alexis at My Silver Lining, and Amber at Amber Under Construction. Both of these ladies write very thoughtfully about their experiences with miscarriage, and I always enjoy reading their posts. They are both great at something I should try much harder at, seeing the positive side of things. Which is why I’m especially touched that they nominated me. I think I usually tend to fall on the bitter rather than sunshine-y side of the infertility spectrum, although I’m working on it :).

So, without further ado, here’s the deal with the Sunshine Award:

Include the Sunshine Award icon in your post (check).

Link the blogger who nominated you (double-check).

Answer 10 questions about yourself (yup, see below).

Nominate 10 other bloggers to receive the award (will do).

Link to your nominees and let them know you nominated them (looking forward to it!).

Alexis’s Questions:

1) Who or what inspires you?

My parents. They are both (for different reasons) amazing role models. They are selfless, generous, strong, and amazingly hard working. I think I have some of their good qualities, but I hope with time I can become more like them.

2) What did you want to be when you grew up? How close did you get?

An actress, preferably on Broadway. I took dance classes, voice lessons, and acting classes for years, and I did lots of theater in and outside of school, and I even considered going to one of those high schools for the arts, like on Fame. I think I was pretty good at the acting part, but Broadway was definitely never going to happen :).

3) Best vacation and dream vacation (if you haven’t already been)?

Oh man, this one is super hard. The first thing that comes to mind for best vacation is the trip to Europe G and I took in May. It was amazing, but honestly every trip G and I take together is pretty awesome. We’re perfect travel buddies because we like doing the same things (i.e., not museums or shopping :)), and wherever we go we just like to wander around on foot and explore.

4) Favorite food you get at the fair?

I’m going to buck the trend of ‘deep-fried everything’ and say corn on the cobb. It’s always roasted to perfection and epitomizes the fair to me.

5) What’s your Silver Lining for the day?

This is something I need to spend more time focusing on. I have SO many things to be appreciative of, but instead I tend to whine and complain about the crappy things. My silver linings include my AMAZING husband, who could not be more loving and supportive, the three cutest cats on the planet, and a job that I actually enjoy getting up and doing each day.

6) Favorite TV show??

Haha, I couldn’t possibly pick just one :). TV is my ‘one weakness’ (tehe, if you watch Lark Rise to Candleford you’ll get that reference). I love comedies like Parks and Rec and New Girl, but I think the two best shows out right now in terms of being just plain amazingly made are House of Cards and Homeland.

7) What US state or world capital would you like to visit?

Also tough to pick just one. We’re talking about going to DC to see the cherry blossoms this coming spring, so I’ll go with that for now!

8) What would you do if you could go back to being 18 years old?

Honestly, I would get my ass into therapy. I have social anxiety disorder, and I can’t imagine how much different my life would have been if I had started treating it way back then. The seeds of the disorder where there when I was a kid, and developed to some degree in high school, but it was in college that things really got totally out of control. I went into a depression and withdrew from everyone except G (we were long distance dating at the time). I had no idea the problem was social anxiety, and I didn’t figure that out and start getting treatment until about 4 years ago. My life has been very different since then, but I can’t help but wonder what my life would be like if I’d nipped it in the bud early on.

9) All time favorite movie and why??

I’m gonna go with Disney’s Alladin. I can sing the lyrics to just about every song from memory :).

10) Favorite dessert?

Man, how am I supposed to pick just one answer for these questions?? Let’s go with chocolate cake with chocolate icing. But really I have yet to meet a dessert I didn’t love.

Amber’s Questions:

Why do you blog?

Well, initially I thought I would do it to have an outlet. I thought it might help me to work through my feelings and I felt like my friends and family had reached ‘sympathy fatigue’ with hearing about me and my problems. I think it still serves that purpose as well, but what has become far more important is the community. I never could have imagined finding the amount of support and understanding I’ve gotten from all of you, and reading your posts and comments is literally the best part of my day most days.

2. What is your favorite book?

Hands down, Jane Eyre.

3. What is your dream vacation?

Honestly, I want to travel just about everywhere. Whenever I go somewhere, the minute I get back I’m dreaming about the next place I’ll go. At the moment a beach vacation is sounding pretty appealing, maybe somewhere like Tahiti or Bora Bora.

4. What is your guilty pleasure?

See #6 above :).

5. If you could tell your teenage self one thing, what would it be?

It doesn’t have to be this hard. See #8 above.

6. What is your biggest fear?

Besides the obvious (I’ll never have a baby), definitely spiders. I have a very strong physical reaction to anything that even looks like a spider. I didn’t set foot into our detached garage/shed for the first 6 years we owned our house because I was afraid of spiders falling on my head from above. Lovable husband has cleaned it up done some de-bugging so I can now go in there to grab my bike and run back out.

7. What is your biggest dream?

Have to go with the obvious here. Having a baby.

8. What are you most proud of?

Finishing my PhD. It was definitely the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and I almost quit more times than I can count. I truly believed I couldn’t do it, it was just too damn hard and I wasn’t good enough or smart enough. But I pushed on and in the end my committee was very impressed with it.

9. What is your best piece of advice?

Nothing is permanent.

10. What makes you happy?

My kitties! When I leave the house for even a few hours I actually look forward to coming home and seeing them :).

Here are my nominees! It’s hard to pick just 10 people because honestly I enjoy reading every single one of your blogs. I’m trying to pick people that weren’t just nominated by Amber or Alexis even though I love all of their nominees as well. These ladies all make me laugh hard and/or think hard.